Gripping Books

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Review: I took a few days vacation and went to Seattle. I finished reading Ancillary Sword on my flight over there and needed something new to read. The apartment I rented had a bookshelf full of fiction, so on a whim I decided to pick up Eat Pray Love.

The only thing I knew about the book before starting was that there's a movie with Julia Roberts and that it's "empowering" women's fiction. Not my usual genre, but I was in the mood for something off the beaten path.

Overall, it was both more fun and less fun than I expected. The story is a memoir of a single woman (Elizabeth herself) living in Italy, India, and Indonesia for a year total and her experiences there. The story begins by catching up the reader on the writer's state of mind and relationship history. Her voice is pretty entertaining and I generally enjoyed her anecdotes. On the other hand, I didn't really find her particularly easy to relate to. She sees things so differently from me that rather than pull me into the book, her inner dialogue just sort of made me quizzically look at her psyche from the sidelines.

The Italy portion was pretty fun though -- descriptions of food made me totally hungry and wishing I was in Italy. I also really enjoyed her language acquisition stories and comparisons. This part of the book was probably my favorite.

The next part of the book describes Elizabeth's experience living in an Indian ashram, practicing yoga. I do yoga myself as an exercise activity, so I have a little bit insight into it, but I don't practice it as a worldview. This part of the book involves Elizabeth searching her soul, meditating, and singing a whole lot. From my view as a reader, it's a duller portion of the book, though there are some interesting tidbits here as well.

After India, Elizabeth ends up in Bali, studying with an old mystic there. Once again, not a whole lot happens, but at least she's mostly emotionally stable for this part of the book, which is pretty nice. There are also some characters in this part whom I enjoyed reading about. The mystic that she studies with is one of them -- he really colored this part of the book for me.

All in all, this was a reasonably interesting book to pick up randomly. Some fun anecdotes, but also pretty slow in parts. Eh.

Monday, May 25, 2015

Review: This is the continuation of the story in Ancillary Justice; Ancillary Sword follows Breq to Athoek station. There Breq is seeking to make contact with Basnaaid, sister of Leutenant Awn in order to make reparations for Awn's death. However, since Anaander Mianaai appointed Breq as a Fleet Commander, she almost immediately ends up involved in the station's politics.

I really enjoyed the character development in this story. In particular, the way Breq relates to all the personnel on her ship and her evolving relationship with Lieutenant Tisarwat. It's a pleasure to watch Breq put it all together.

There are lots of socio-political themes in the book as well. Racial exploitation, segregation, political activism are all woven into the story. There are multiple races in a complex relationship with each other and the author masterfully puts it all together without bogging down in backstory or long info dumps.

In fact, the plot itself was pretty straightforward and moved at a good pace. There's a really good balance between action and exposition and the book is nicely tied up at the end. All-in-all, I thought this was even better than the first in the series and I am looking forward to Ancillary Mercy coming out in October.

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Review: I guess my reading lately falls into "books I should have read in high school, but didn't" category. I've heard so much about The Giver, but I've never read anything by Lois Lowry until now.

The book starts with a preface by the author talking about his experiences with this book and the upcoming movie (which I guess already came out and has 36% on rotten tomatoes, so I am not watching that). If anything, the preface set my book expectations even higher than before.

I have to admit that upon finishing the book I was a bit disappointed in its simplicity. The story follows Jonas, a boy in the future apocalyptic society. There is a bunch of set up done to illustrate how Jonas' society, family, and relationships work and to get us close to the character. When Jonas turns 12, he is chosen as the next Receiver. The Receiver is someone who will carry the burden of societal memory about the past on behalf of the whole settlement.

It's a neat idea and it was written long before the rest of apocalyptic YA that followed, but the plot of the story really doesn't have much to speak of. There's a small twist with what felt like a rather weak resolution to me. Nevertheless, I am giving this book a pretty high rating because it was sufficiently entertaining, held my attention, and had enjoyable characters..

Behind the simple prose, hides a more sophisticated idea of what it means to be free and whether being happy and ignorant is better than being informed and miserable. The mechanic of Jonas' releasing memories is also pretty interesting. It's a quick and worthwhile read, but probably one I would be more likely to recommend to a younger reader.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Review: I may be the last person to read this book. Somehow we passed each other like ships in the night -- my school did not have it on the curriculum. With the news of Harper Lee releasing a sequel fifty years after the original publication, I was curious to see for myself what I've been missing.

The story is told from the point of view of a six year old girl nick-named Scout. It's 1933 and she lives with her brother and father in a town of Maycomb in Alabama. From her innocent view, she describes the case her father works on, in which a black man is accused of raping a white woman. Scout's father is assigned to be the man's defense attorney just as town politics are heating up about the case.

To Kill A Mockingbird is a fairly slow-flowing book. Most of the action actually takes place in a chapter or two towards the end, while the rest of the novel focuses on the flow of life and the characters in Maycomb. It's an interesting juxtaposition of kindness and persecution that is shown throughout the book. It also touches quite a bit on racial politics of the time.

I liked Scout's voice as a narrator and it's easy to admire her father for his principles. But there's a wider study of character going on in the book and some of the minor characters became some of my favorites. I really like Miss Maudie, who likes her garden more than her house and takes difficulties in stride. Some of the less likable characters are interesting too, like Mrs. Duboise who kicks a morphine addiction before he death.

To Kill A Mockingbird is slow and thoughtful, but enjoyable. I just might pick up Go Set A Watchman when it comes out in July.

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Review: My only previous experience reading Murakami was 1Q84, which I thought was a profoundly strange book. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is no less strange, but quite different in style and content.

The main hero is Toru Okada, who is a 30-year old married man, who gets laid off from a law firm at which he works in some errand-boy/clerical position. His wife works in the publishing business and continues to do so while Toru stays at home and tries to figure out what it is that he really wants to do.

The couple owns a cat who goes missing. Toru's wife, Kumiko, hires a psychic to find where the cat disappeared to and sends Toru to the appointment with the psychic. The psychic is an entirely odd character named Malta Kano, who tells Toru that the cat has decided to leave for good, also tells Toru where to find the tie he's been looking for, and declares that Toru's brother-in-law, Noboru Wataya, has raped her sister. Things only get odder from there when Toru gets a house call from Malta's sister, who tells him half of her life story and then disappears. On top of it, Toru gets an inheritance from an old man he used to visit and strikes a friendship with a 15-year-old neighbour.

I will stop re-counting the plot at this point -- to say it's complex is an understatement. There's a whole lot of plot lines and characters who do odd things to various degree. And the strangest thing is that I really enjoyed that.

The book is divided into three parts. I believe they were originally published separately. The first two parts are especially good and kept my attention very well. The last part felt a bit less tightly plotted and more meandering and even stranger than the rest. The ending was not entirely satisfactory. I sort of understood why Kumiko did what she did, but did not understand why she had to publicize it as she did. I did not have the feeling of full resolution, but I guess most mysteries did get resolved at the end.

Overall, it was a really interesting read and one I would wholeheartedly recommend if you enjoy puzzling over people's psychology, enjoy war stories, or have ever felt lost.

Monday, April 6, 2015

Title: When You LeaveAuthor: Monica RopalGenre: Young AdultPublished: 2015Rating: 8/10

Disclaimer: I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: When You Leave starts out with a plot that is familiar to all who read young adult fiction. Girl transfers to a new school. Girl meets a boy. They fall in love. So far, it's pretty standard fare. Though there are some complications: they are in different social circles and hide their relationship from all their friends. But the real twist occurs when the boy gets murdered and the girl starts investigating his death.

The book is written from Cass's point of view and feels very authentic. Cass is fallible, confused, and often pretty awkward. She is not brilliant when it comes to investigations. Nevertheless, she persists with her inquiry and eventually figures thing out. Her journey from start to finish is mesmerizing. I had trouble putting the book down until it was finished.

There were other interesting characters in Cass's crew. Her voiceless friend, Mattie and the rest of the skateboarding crew were also quite believable, and each unique in their own way. The least well-written character is probably Cooper, who gets murdered. His motivations for doing various things seem feeble and his whole character comes off like a stock "perfect boyfriend" stereotype.

The plot kept me guessing on who the murderer was for quite some time, though I did figure it out towards the end of the book. All-in-all it was an interesting read and a new take on a coming of age and coming to terms type novel and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Review: I took a note of S.L. Huang in the fairy-tale anthology Retold that I read last month. Her story was one of my favorites, so I thought I'd give her novel a try. The premise sounded interesting: a mercenary with math superpower fighting a mind-controlling psychic.

So, I like math and I think math is cool and powerful and you can do a lot of different stuff with math. But this book pushed it well past the point of where I could accept it. There was one thing that bothered me in particular -- being able to do a crazy calculation about bullet velocity and direction is really not enough to dodge a bullet just because you know where it's going. I would have been much more accepting of a math super-power that also didn't turn into a physical super-power of precise motion and crazy strength. As it was, the heroine was pretty ridiculously overpowered and her constant math rationalizations for it made me rather annoyed.

The story itself was a pretty fun thriller type plot, which just kept escalating throughout the book. Drug cartels, mystery government organizations, hackers, and a psychopath with religion all figure into the plot that takes the main crew all around L.A. area. All-in-all, it was rather entertaining, if not entirely believable. I liked Arthur, the P.I. investigating a shadowy organization called Pithica who teams up with the heroine, Cas.

He has some serious reservations about Cas's moral compass and her murdering people left and right and I agree with that. I just wish he didn't eventually decide it wasn't that big a deal after all and strike a friendship. After all, by the end of the book Cas has probably murdered 4-dozen people as a very conservative estimate. Of course, they are all bad guys... Still, sometimes that much violence just doesn't sit well with me.

The other part of the book that could have been better is the writing. It's hard for me to put a finger on what exactly bothered me there, but I could easily tell it's a book by a new writer. I guess it just felt a little sloppy and under-edited.

All-in-all, it was entertaining, but I don't think I am going to pick up the next book in the series. Still, it's heartening to see books with female math ass-kicking superheroes.

About Me

I am a software engineer who likes to read speculative fiction and any other book I may lay my eyes on. Sideline interests include board games and TV watching.
I am always happy to hear from you. Feel free to drop me a line at grippingbooks@gmail.com.